Under a Familiar Gaze
by EvanescingSky
Summary: Amelia has a surprise activity planned for her and Anya tonight. Anya is willing to indulge her.


[text: $Annie Girl$] heyo i got an idea for us tomorrow

[text: Amelia Jones] ouo?

[text: $Annie Girl$] its a surprise

Anya knew she could get Amelia to spill if she pressed—Amelia was terrible about keeping secrets, especially for surprises. She simply got too excited and it burst out of her. But today Anya decided to be nice and let Amelia keep her surprise.

Next evening at the appointed 8 p.m., she arrived at the Jones residence and let herself in. Amelia was in the living room playing Mario Cart with her little cousin, Peter. When she noticed Anya, she promptly threw the race.

"I win!" Peter's triumphant shout was accompanied by much leaping up and down on the battered old couch.

"Yes, you won, now run some practice laps." Amelia got up and tossed her controller onto the couch. "Hey Annie."

"What's your big plan tonight?" Anya asked, twisting her car keys on their pink bunny lanyard around her fingers.

"You'll see!" Amelia gave a rakish grin. "Come into the kitchen, mom made smoothies and we saved you one." Anya followed Amelia into a kitchen that hadn't faced serious remodeling since the mid-1970s. "I was going to save mine to drink with you, but…" She made a half-hearted gesture towards a pink-streaked glass by a stack of plates near the sink. She opened the earth-toned fridge and bent over to fetch Anya's smoothie, leaving Anya to admire the look of Amelia's thighs and backside in her cut-off shorts, which she had fashioned herself from an old pair of jeans. When she caught herself staring, she was appalled and thought she ought to guiltily look away now, but she didn't. _What's wrong with appreciating a friend?_ She asked herself. _Amelia is attractive, anyone could see that. It's only natural I like looking at an aesthetically pleasing person._ Amelia interrupted her vigorous internal debate by straightening up and turning around. Anya smiled awkwardly, trying not to look suspect. "Whipped cream?"

"What?" Anya asked blankly, still smiling.

"Whipped cream. Do you want any whipped cream?" Amelia had the smoothie in one hand and a can of Miracle Whip in the other, tip poised over the soft peaks of the lumpy purple smoothie.

"Oh. No. Thank you." Anya reached a hand out and Amelia passed off the smoothie, opting to blast the whipped cream straight into her mouth before putting the can away.

"You want a straw?" Amelia asked, presumably, spraying whipped cream onto the green-and-yellow tiled floor. Anya just shook her head, amused with Amelia's slovenly behavior, and sipped her drink.

"Work was good?" was Amelia's next query, as she leaned back against the counter. Her left hand covered a broken patch.

"Mhm." Anya nodded, and Amelia giggled at her purple smoothie mustache.

"Good, good." She jiggled a leg and Anya could tell she was trying not to let the cat out of the bag. Miraculously, she made it through Anya's smoothie by talking enthusiastically about _Star Wars: Rogue One_ , which she had seen in theaters for the third time earlier that week. "Alright, let's go!" As soon as Anya had sucked the last dregs from her smoothie cup, Amelia launched herself away from the counter and ran to her room. She burst out before Anya could even follow her down the hall, keys swinging from her hand. "To the truck!"

"I could drive," Anya offered pleasantly.

"Oh no. No, no, no. Not a chance. Not after last time," Amelia replied in a warning tone. "I am _not_ spending the night in the slammer with my mom sobbing on the phone about my future. Besides, you don't know where to go!"

Mouth twisted down in a moue about the insult to her driving skills, Anya followed Amelia out to her old red Ford, a classic American number that looked like it had survived several tornadoes and possibly a World War. Outside the Jonses' half-hearted air conditioning, the air felt like a physical weight pressing down on Anya's chest. The soupy warm air didn't stop her from wearing boot-cut jeans and a long-sleeved white blouse. Amelia always claimed that Anya must secretly be a witch, immune to heat to dress like she did in the dog days of summer.

As Anya grasped the toasty handle of the passenger-sided door, she—as usual—admired the door, which was a dark blue in contrast with the faded red of the rest of the truck. The tan, faux-leather inside had a rip in the middle of the bench seat from where Amelia's dog Buster had caught a claw in the fabric years ago. Amelia hissed and bounced up and down the seat as her bare thighs came into contact with the baked bench.

"You could put on pants," Anya suggested dryly, as Amelia punched on her car's feeble A.C.

"In this weather? No way," Amelia scoffed. "Besides, I look rockin' in jorts."

"Please don't ever say that word again."

"Man, I do love my jorts." Amelia turned the radio on. She had only two stations—today's top 40 hits and classics. Luck was not on Anya's side today—she left it on the Top 40 station. It was playing softly, and some of the songs Anya had heard so many times she'd become grudgingly neutral to their existence. "I'd put on my iPod, but my tape deck has fucked off," Amelia grumbled. "I suspect dad."

"Your dad has an iPod?"

"With like, 10 songs," Amelia complained. "I keep telling him to add more! Not that hearing the same 10 disco hits on repeat every time he puts it on isn't great."

"I'm not even sure my dad knows what an iPod is," Anya said. Amelia laughed, which made Anya laugh, and Amelia put the windows down as they picked up speed to give them more air. During the day she wouldn't have bothered—the breeze itself would be too hot to provide relief even in motion.

When they hit the 3rd play of Selena Gomez's new song before they'd gone 15 miles, Anya punched over to the classics station. The dulcet tones of The Moody Blues' _Nights in White Satin_ swept into the air, bringing Cold War nostalgia. Anya relaxed. IT was tough to get her to admit it, but she did enjoy much classical American music—even the rock. They coasted down the empty road, and Anya decided to try again to see if Amelia would share their destination.

So where is it we're going?"

"Here!" All at once, Amelia cranked the wheel left and they went careening off the road into a grassy field. The car jounced over bumps and hillocks, shaking the two young women around like beetles in a box. Anya grabbed the handle over the window and hung on until the car had rolled to a stop, road no longer visible. Then she cast a peeved look at Amelia, sure she'd done it, as she would say, "just for the lulz". But then Amelia cheerfully announced, "We're here!"

Anya let go of the handle and looked around, wondering if she had missed something. "We're in the middle of nowhere," she said when she had mostly concluded that she hadn't missed a key feature of the innocuous grass field.

"Exactly!" Amelia encouraged her door open with a kick and hoped out. She took a bundle from the bed of the truck and poked her head back into the cab to add, "Trust your captain, Number One." Silvery brow furrowed, Anya got out as Amelia flicked a checkered blanket over the hood of the car. Part 2 of the bundle was her favored bomber jacket, which she spread out over the windshield as best she could. "Hop up, babe." Amelia climbed onto the car, shortly joined by Anya. "Now for the show." After a brief fumble in the pocket of the jacket, she pulled out her dad's old military-issue binoculars. "Look up," she said, holding the binoculars up to her face.

Above them, away from the glare of city lights, the sky was star-spangled, and Anya gave a happy sigh, relaxing back against the windshield. Her eyes roved the field of stars, drinking in their twinkling wonder. Then she elbowed Amelia and held her hand out for the binoculars, which her old friend handed over. With such air, the stars were even more scintillating. Anya felt she could see each magical beam of light coming off the brilliant spheres. If only, she lamented, they had a real telescope!

"Sure is something, innit?" Amelia breathed, folding her arms behind her head.

"It is," Anya agreed, not lowering the binoculars.

"I knew you'd appreciate this," Amelia boasted, looking over at Anya with a little grin.

"I do," the other woman agreed emphatically. She hesitated, then added, "I'm glad you invited me."

"Of course!" In the dim light, Amelia's eyes remained bright. "Who else would want to do this with me?" Anya remembered Amelia coming to school in the seventh grade dressed as Luke Skywalker, and getting her lightsaber confiscated before lunch. She had always been unabashedly geeky, and anything to do with space always drew her eye.

"Hey, Amelia," Anya said, letting the binoculars droop into her lap. "Why didn't you study astronomy in school?" Amelia looked up at the sky, and allowed a long silence to stretch between them.

"I dunno," she said at last. "I just…didn't." Again, Anya was haunted by her own past taunts about Amelia's intelligence, but she was afraid to ask if that was why Amelia hadn't gone into a difficult field. She was afraid of the answer. "There are lots of other cool things to study anyway!"

"But you were always so passionate about space." Anya wanted to kick herself for picking at the wound, but there was no real effort in her attempt to let it go. Sometimes, Anya felt that watching her attempt to interact with other people was like watching a car wreck in slow motion. She was too fascinated by the damage being done to realize she really out to stop it.

"I can be passionate about more than one thing, Annie," Amelia chuckled. Anya strained herself to listen for any forced lightheartedness to Amelia's tone, but she couldn't tell. "For example… _Rogue One!"_

"Oh, no." Anya gave an exaggerated groan as Amelia grinned at her.

"My one true passion: space films." Anya shifted on the blanket, wondering if she might move closer, but not wanting Amelia to notice. "And hamburgers," Amelia added after a moment of thought. "And cool rocks. And baseball."

"And talking to yourself," Anya offered helpfully.

"And hanging out with jerk friends." Amelia rolled closer to give Anya a shove.

"I didn't think you had any other kind," Anya quipped.

"I have some nice friends," Amelia said. "You just don't know them!"

"How convenient," Anya said.

"Very convenient," Amelia agreed. She stretched and reached an arm around Anya. "But it just so happens I tend to like my asshole friends more." They both lapsed into silence. Anya's blood rushed in her ears; she half-wished Amelia would start chattering at her like she did sometimes, but for once the young American seemed to prefer the quiet. Anya had spent too much time in the quiet, in a house where no one aired their grievances, and instead festered in silence. Of all the things, Anya might most have valued Amelia's willingness to be upfront when she had something on her mind. But now Amelia was silent, and Anya feared the silence would leave her with no recourse but to give into what she wanted.

So she did.

Easing herself onto her side, she allowed centuries to pass as she lowered her head onto Amelia's shoulder. The sound of Amelia's soft intake of breath broke the sound barrier. Her arm slumped around Anya, hand sliding down to a natural resting place at her side. Each time she moved, Anya waited minutes before making the next move, as though afraid to break the spell, until she was as comfortable as she could be, lying on the hood of Amelia's Stone Age car.

"Look, it's Ursa Major," Amelia said in a gentle voice, pointing up. "Do you see it?"

Anya bit her lip, tempted to lie, but it had been a long time since she'd gone stargazing. "No."

"Here." Amelia took Anya's hand. "Point for me." She traced the shape of the bear with Anya's index finger. "There it is. See it now?"

"I do," Anya murmured, seeing the invisible lines that made the stars a shape, like connect-the-dots. Regrettably, Amelia let go of her hand when she was done.

"Can you see Sirius tonight?" Amelia asked, scanning the sky.

"There." Anya took a sense of victory in spotting the star first, and pointed to it.

"Good eye!" Amelia smiled at her and Anya's triumph grew. They pointed out a few more, and then passed into a more comfortable quiet. "I'm glad you came back," Amelia told her after a few minutes more, trying to decide if she was going to buck up and say it or not.

When a lifetime had passed, and their future stretched out ahead of them in the stars, millions of distantly sparkling options, millions of far-off paths, spread out in front of Anya's eyes, she replied, "I'm glad too."

Hooray, got something out for Femslash February! Part of my "childhood bffs to rivals to girlfriends" AU (which can be found on my tumblr imakemywings). Just to be clear, Anya wasn't the only bully when they were kids; Amelia had her fair share of nasty comments. Basically they were jerks, but they're okay now. They've had that talk.


End file.
